OVERVIEW
  • Client – The Great Western Fan Festival
  • Industry – Live Event / Music
  • Date – 2014

The Great Western Fan Festival is a three-day music festival in Visalia, California with the best gospel singers, groups, and quartets from around the nation and 2014 was the first year the festival used social media as a marketing tool.

GOALS

Their target audience was people in the Central Valley who were 40 and over who liked gospel music. Since it was their first time using social media, the goals were to;

    • Create brand awareness through online ads by geo-targeting specific audiences.
    • Build, engage and inform target audiences through various social media platforms.
    • Excite existing audience of current “fans” through talent group’s social media outlets.

From there my measurable objectives were;

    • Gain over 500 social media followers in total for the festival.
    • Total impressions and total reach each see over 100,000 views.
    • Website sees over 10,000 clicks to the ticket sales section.
STRATEGY

Below are the strategies and tactics that I used.

    • Social Media Marketing: The idea was to create two months of interactive organic content leading up to the festival. Everything from “artist spotlight bios” to videos of the talent coming to the event.
    • Social Media Ad Buying: Since the target audience’s age group usage of Facebook was extremely high, all online adverting was directed towards the Facebook page. Each month 10 posts were strategically promoted for $25 each.
    • Online Contest: Created a “like this post” giveaway in which one random person who liked the post would win two tickets to the festival
    • Real-Time Marketing: Created social media content in real-time. This was everything from photos to videos of performers on stage and behind-the-scenes content.
    • Talent Relations: Outreached to the publicists and managers of over a dozen groups that were going to perform at the festival to have them share festival content on their social media outlets was a priority. This resulted in the festival seeing a higher online organic reach versus paid reach.
RESULTS

Below were the final results.

    • Followers: 1,113
    • Engagement: 13,994
    • Total Reach: 171,976
    • Total Impressions: 411,967
    • Web Clicks: 41,755

Overall the client was very happy. The online engagement saw a 122.6%+ increase from the original measurable objective. Both reach and impressions saw a 483.94%+ increase from the original measurable objective. Web clicks saw a 317.55%+ increase from the original measurable objective.

AWARDS

This campaign won an award in 2015.

    • Public Relations Society of America “Image Awards” – Award of Merit: Social Media